One Lovely Blog Award

Surprise! Today I opened my in-box to discover I’ve been nominated, with several others, for The One Lovely Blog Award. This is as flattering as it is interesting, because we’re 7 nominees in total, and we’re a mixed bag, including a female soldier serving in Afghanistan, several photographers, a woman sharing her grandmother’s fascinating diary entries from 100 years ago, a couple running a Bed & Breakfast in the States, and a dog lover.

And this is surely what makes the world of blogging such an interesting one? We who read a variety of blogs get views and insights into other worlds, other lives, other ways of thinking, and forge cyber-relationships with people we’d never otherwise come into contact with.

The blogger who nominated me, who writes Thoughts from an American Woman, is very different indeed from me. She calls herself as ‘an American housewife and Army mom’, and writes about her experience of being the mother of a serving soldier, and shares with her readers her curiosity, her busy life, her love of dogs, her poetry and her Christian faith. Despite her active days, she finds time to follow very many blogs. Thank you, Patty, for nominating me and for sending me frequent words of encouragement.

Now, apparently I need to share 7 things about myself:

I’m fine with spiders, and snakes, and mice, and bats, and birds, and creepy-crawlies. But I don’t much care for the scrabbling and rustling noises that are beginning to emerge from behind our kitchen cupboards.

I sometimes fear my life is defined by my total inability to get a good night’s sleep.

I think I’ve got quite a mixed blood-line. On my mother’s side, Suffolk and Yorkshire blood, with great grandparents called ‘Pickard’. Originally from Picardy in France surely? My father, long dead, took any stories of his Polish family to his grave.

For years I’ve been banging on about doing a long stretch of the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostella. I even have half-baked plans half-talked about with several different friends. Perhaps going public here will force me to do something about it at last.

I can’t begin the day without my fix of coffee. Please don’t expect me to.

I can’t end the day without reading myself to sleep. I normally get an hour or more in during the night as well. A good way to be fairly well-read.

The best stress-buster is to get in the kitchen and cook. Then relax over the results with easy company and a glass of wine.

And then I need to tell you which blogs I would like to nominate. Here they are, in alphabetical order.

As a Linguist: An American teacher comments perceptively and engagingly on language in its many forms.

The Nelson House Diaries: A bit incestuous this! Sharon is a Francophile and found Kalba’s and my blog – so we found hers. Hers is the story, among other things, of the challenge of renovating her home to an exacting – and exciting – standard.

The View from the Potting Shed: Gilly gardens with great knowledge and enthusiasm here in the Ariege. She’s not posted recently, so I hope this may encourage her to resume her useful and inspirational blog.

Welcome Visitor: Another incestuous one. This American expat, living in Germany, discovered my blog – so I discovered his. It is, as he says, about his life in Germany – and life in general.

So…. Just eight among thousands and thousands of blogs you could spend 200 hours a day reading. And to Patty, and all the bloggers who give me such pleasure: thank you.

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18 thoughts on “One Lovely Blog Award”

Congratulations! Well deserved though – I always enjoy reading your posts. Not liking the sound of the scrabbling in the kitchen!
I don’t recall you saying much about the books you read – is there a reason for this?
I’m in France as I write this (Dordogne), and envy you having a home in this beautiful country.

Uh? I’ve just replied and it got lost. I’ll do it again. What I said was that I do plan to comment more on books read after getting through a busy September (I’ll explain later) though probably not via this blog. Currently reading Frances Osborne’s ‘The Bolter’: great story, true, about a scandalous life lived in the inter- World War years in England and Kenya. Quite your cup of tea I would have thought. Have a wonderful break in the Dordogne

Absolutely my cup of tea – have read it already! Seem to recall the author was a relative of ‘he Bolter’. Have got Claire Tomalin’s fairly recent ‘Charles Dickens’ to settle down by the pool with…….that should keep me ot of mischief…

Oh Margaret! What have you done to me? The shallowness of my life is about to be revealed, but I’m flattered as well so thank you. Funnily I’ve been thinking about the Santiago trek recently. I’ve just read ‘Pilgrim’s Road’ by Bettina Selby (although she cycled) and the pilgrimage route just keeps cropping up. Mind you I’m not sure I’m really suited, you may need coffee in the morning but I need my hairdryer!
Sorry to read about your accident (I’m a bit behind on blogs this week) and hope you’re feeling OK now.

It’s quite hard isn’t it? Yup, I’m fine. My teeth can wait till I’m back in England and I can see The Best Dentist In All The World. So it can’t be that bad after all.
I think even hostels have hair-dryer plugs these days. Next excuse?
Glad the clede is sorted out. Couldn’t have helped.

Congratulations Margaret for your nomination! You know I don’t like waste time on computer but I really always take a great pleasure in reading your so well written pieces!
I’ll read some of the others blogs you propose too.
So go on giving us beautiful descriptions and impressions and thoughts about the French way of life!

Thank you for that very lovely mention…I enjoy traveling and know that traveling to France or Yorkshire will most likely not happen so it is such a joy to see these places through your pictures and articles. Blessings!

Armchair travelling via the bogs of others is not too bad a substitute, is it? By the way, we did that route via Hospitalet again yesterday, as we went to see my daughter in Spain. Those forest fires seem to be out at last…though sadly they continue elsewhere in Europe

Thanks for the update on the fires, it is so devastating. I do enjoy armchair traveling but I “never say never” and always leave the opportunity to travel to Europe again. Pictures are wonderful but do not justice to the true beauty.

Thanks McChucckles – as you say I’ll try harder next time. I was just surprised to find such an outbuilding listed between the staircase and the laundry room in the estate agents details that I thought it may have a secondary meaning.
Regards Sharon

Well done, a much deserved nomination. I read the Bolter some time ago in my pre Kindle days. I picked it up at random in a bookshop (not quite at random as I am a fan of Love in a Cold Climate etc) and opened it at a photo I had seen before in Village Halls close to where we live in East Sussex. It then bacame a must buy and I wasn’t disappointed.